Darkness Under Heaven
by meilin-m
Summary: Gwen Cooper and Leo Jones wage a petty little insurretion against the Master during the Year that Wasn't. Rated T for language. Sequel to We'll Meet Again. For eumenidis, who gave me the poem, which gave me the idea. Blame her.


When the Horror passing speech  
Hunted us along,  
Each laid hold on each, and each  
Found the other strong.  
--Rudyard Kipling, "Helen All Alone"

Prologue:

Someone was coming. Gwen Cooper froze where she lay, in the ruins of a block of flats. A low sound, like a night bird, floated through the air, and she returned it. A dark, indistinct figure slunk through the chunks of concrete and sank down next to her.

Gwen smiled as the young man kissed her soundly. "There you are, Earth's Most Wanted. Well, brother of Earth's Most Wanted, any rate. I suspect you and I are further down the list."

"Sod the list," said Leo Jones. "Let's blow something up."

Chapter One: Gwen

Gwen Cooper's first successful act as an insurgent was small but satisfying. She was hiding in the sewers of ruined Cardiff waiting for the Toclafane to come for her. She couldn't imagine the Master was really going to let her escape clean.

But after a few hours of shivering in the muck and damp, it appeared she didn't matter enough to send someone or something after her. That couldn't be right. Gwen had no illusions about her own importance, but why go to all the bother of bringing her to the Valiant, and then to Cardiff? No, something was up.

All right, Cooper, she thought, run it down. If it were Torchwood who'd done it, why would we have done it? She began cataloging the contents of her pockets, and found a Pakistan International Airlines napkin, a cough drop, her keys--and her abandoned earpiece. "Ah," she said.

Soon Gwen was on her way, moving through the sewer towards the remains of the Hub. Ianto's blood was still on her shirt, and if she let herself she could see Owen's sightless eyes and the bloody mess that had been Tosh's head, in the back of a lorry in Pakistan. She had to live for their sake; she was not a vengeful woman but now she would act for the dead, and, with hope, help the living. All but one of her team were gone. She missed Jack desperately, and wished he were there to tell her what to do. But he'd been a good teacher. He'd suffered to help her get away, and she was determined to make him proud.

Gwen found a hole in the sewer wall, where whatever the Master had dropped on the Hub had breached it. Slipping through, she worked her way carefully down the wreckage until she reached the beginning of the relatively unscathed lower archives. She took out her keys, squeezed the tiny LED torch on her keychain, and walked in.

The archives ran deep below Cardiff, tunnels upon tunnels--more than a hundred years' worth, much of it uncataloged. She had her keys, she knew Jack's passwords, and she had Welsh luck on her side. She would see what she could salvage, and she'd move on. If the Master wanted to underestimate Gwen Cooper, fine. She could live with that. In the meantime, as long as she was alive, so was Torchwood.

Chapter Two: Leo

Leo Jones had torn Brighton apart trying to find his daughter and girlfriend after the Toclafane attacks separated them. It was in the rubble of St. Bartholomew's that he finally found them both, the baby's little body underneath her mother's.

He wasn't exactly sure what happened next. He was fairly certain a few days had passed, and that he'd stayed near the ruins of the church. A familiar voice filtered through his shocked stupor: "Oh my God, I can't believe I found you! Leo? Leo, I need you. Come on, little brother."

He was slumped against a wall, and something was flickering in front of him. He couldn't quite keep his eye on it. Had he been drinking? No, he wasn't drunk, he thought, there wasn't any liquor at the end of the world. "Martha?" What was Martha doing at the end of the world? "Is that you? Where are you?"

He felt arms around him and the rather nauseating distortion in front of him stopped. His sister snapped into focus. "Sorry, forgot," she said. "As long as I'm touching you, the filter shouldn't bother you. Oh, Leo. Oh God, I'm so glad I found you!" As she rocked him in her arms, his shock began to thaw. Wrenching sobs began to shake him, and he clung to his sister so hard he nearly tore her shirt.

Later, after their tears had stopped long enough to speak, Leo showed her where he'd buried his girlfriend and their daughter: A cairn of red bricks from the walls of St. Bart's. "It was the best I could do," he said, mouth twisting. The tears began again for both of them.

Martha's head suddenly went up. "Leo. Hold my hand and be very, very still. Whatever you do, don't let go." A soft, silvery whirring sound filled the air, and a quartet of metallic globes came sailing into view. They scanned the church yard, chattering and bobbing through the ruins, but didn't seem to notice the brother and sister standing stock still before them. After a few tense moments, they floated off.

"Remember how hard it was to see me at first?" said Martha. "I've got a thing called a perception filter. The Toclafane can't see me, and almost no one else can, either, unless I'm touching them. It doesn't work that well for two, but holding still and keeping quiet increases its effectiveness. Remember that, and stay close by me for now."

They found a sheltered spot and huddled together. Martha told him her story, or tried to; Leo kept making her back up. "Your boyfriend--okay, he's not your boyfriend, he's just the Doctor--is a time traveling alien. And he took you to the end of time...and you met the Prime Minister?"

"He's not the Prime Minister, Leo--well, he is the Prime Minister, but he's an alien. Like the Doctor, same kind as him. His real name is the Master." She told him what had happened to their family--how their parents and sister Tish were captive aboard an aircraft carrier in the sky. How the Doctor had been aged 100 years and rendered helpless. About the message the Doctor had given her, that she passed on to Leo with instructions to tell everyone he met. And about her friend Jack, who couldn't die, and how she'd had to leave him behind.

"Jack had a team, in Cardiff. Torchwood. The Master said he'd sent Jack's people out of the country, but maybe someone stayed behind. Maybe there's help in Cardiff. I don't know, it's worth a shot. Leo," said Martha, leaning into her brother, "I need you to stay free. I need you to pass on the message, to spread it to as many people as you can. I have to go. I have to tell the rest of the world. I'm only going to have about a year, and I need to leave now."

She took her brother's hands in hers. "Head toward Cardiff, Leo. Look for whatever's left of Torchwood. I'm crossing to France tonight."

Chapter Three: Side by Side

"That was a bag of wank," Gwen muttered.

"Yeah, well, we can't 'strike a blow' when we're among people, you know that," Leo replied as they walked away from the work camp where they'd been hiding near Ipswich. "There could be repercussions for them if we do. Look at it this way: We got some good reconnaissance. And we passed on Martha's story."

"Mmm."

He glanced over at Gwen. Her sad hazel eyes were turned inward, as they so often had been in the time he'd known her. "Gwen."

"Hmm?"

"You're tired. Let's find a good place to stop for the night." They couldn't build a fire tonight; the perception filters Gwen had found in the remains of Torchwood kept them relatively safe, but a lone fire, seemingly unattended, would draw too much attention. He scanned the area, settled on a looted restaurant, and guided her inside.

Gwen opened her rucksack and pulled out the meager dinner the insurgency members inside the work camp had packed for them, and they chewed companionably, side by side on a couple of banquettes. "So Leo," she said between bites, "Being the brother of the famous Martha Jones, did you ever meet the Doctor?"

"Yeah. I mean, I don't really know him," said Leo, "only through Martha, and we thought she was bonkers. We only met him just before the election." He offered her their only luxury, a thermos of hot, very weak tea; she accepted gratefully. "We were at the same party once. My sister, Tish, worked for this bloke Lazarus. A scientist--a bit of a mad one, actually, as it turned out. Weird party. It was easy to believe the Doctor was trouble after that."

Leo smiled. "I remember what Tish said to me, when we first met the Doctor with Martha. It was at my birthday party the night before the Lazarus thing. She said, '1978 called. Elvis Costello wants his look back.'"

Gwen laughed. "So that's what he looks like?"

"Oh Christ," he answered, "suit, tie, and rubber toe-cap trainers. Glasses. Hair every which way. Skinny--you wouldn't think of him as being able to put up much of a fight let alone protect the universe." He shook his head. "You've met the Master, though."

Gwen was silent for a moment. "Yeah. I have." Leo raised his brows. "It's not really something I can talk about yet." She gave him a small, sad smile.

"I'll tell you one thing I did to that bastard, though," she said, looking up at him, her smile wide this time. "He thought he was going to be able to track me through my earpiece--all the Torchwood earpieces had GPS locators. I don't know why it would have mattered to him, but it was the only reason I could think of for letting me escape." She took a drink of tea. "Whatever the Master did to let the Toclafane in? It nearly knocked the Weevils--these...well, we weren't sure what the Weevils were, aliens or--but they were in a bad state. I could walk right up to one and it would barely even notice me. So I put my earpiece on one." She grinned.

Leo laughed. "I wonder how long he tracked it before he realized it wasn't you?"

"He probably figured it out right after we blew up our first convoy," she shrugged.

"I remember that convoy," he answered. "That was the first time I kissed you."

"So it was," she answered coolly. They silently sipped the tea, passing the thermos back and forth.

"Are you ever going to let me kiss you again, Gwen?"

"Ask me another night, Leo."

"I'm asking you tonight."

She turned to face him full on. "You think now is the time for this."

"You know it is," he replied, his young face intense and serious. "This is all we have. You and me, Gwen, right now. We've lost everyone and everything else. We could lose each other any time. This is what we have--it's all anyone ever has, but we choose not to know it. When things are like this, that's when we don't have any choice but to know it."

"Lucky us," Gwen said. She flicked the crumbs of dinner from her fingers, took a last swig of tea and said, "Can you take first watch? I really need sleep."

Leo sighed. "Yeah, sure."

She settled down beside him on the banquette cushions and was soon fast asleep, Leo watching over her with troubled eyes.

Chapter Four: Special Grace

Leo scrambled down a hillside, bullets whizzing over his head. "Shit. shitshitshitshitOW!" A bullet grazed his temple, sending blood into his eyes. Well, he thought, here's where we find out the limits of damaged perception filters. He briefly fingered the cracked pendant hanging around his neck.

He pelted through the scrub away from the factory they'd been watching. Leo could hear the patrol closing in behind and silently sent out an apology to his sister and to Gwen. Sorry, I tried to stay alive--

--when a small form body-checked him to the ground. "Quiet," hissed Gwen. "Stay down, stay in contact and don't move." They clung side by side in a small thicket of saplings, staying as flat as they could.

The factory guards slowed, moving uncertainly. "Any sign?" the one bringing up the rear called to the point man, who shook his head. Gwen was holding her breath, and Leo felt her heart hammering against his chest.

"Well," said the point man, "if someone was out there, he's gone now." He shouldered his machine gun and sighed. "Right. We put it in the log books as a false alarm. An animal. Are we clear?" They all mumbled assent. "Then let's get the fuck back inside. I'm freezing my bollocks off."

Gwen and Leo didn't move even after the men were long gone. "You're bleeding," she said.

"This is where I'm supposed to say, 'It's just a scratch,'" he smiled. "And it is. It's all right, Dr Milligan can fix me up if I need any fixing at all."

Her heart was beginning to slow, but he could still feel it beating hard and strong. Gwen raised up on one hand and wiped the blood from his eyes with the cuff of her shirt. She traced her fingers down his jaw. "I'm thinking," she said slowly, looking down into his dark eyes, "I'm thinking you might kiss me now, Leo."

He pulled her head down and kissed her, at first gently and thoughtfully, and then passionately, his strong fingers in her shaggy dark hair.

Epilogue:

"That put us a few steps up on the list!" puffed Leo, laughing as they ran into the abandoned school that served as their current refuge. In the distance, an ammo dump continued blowing itself up, each explosion sending a satisfying "whump" thundering through the night air.

"Sod the list," said Gwen, coming to a stop and panting briefly, hands on knees. "We need to take inventory." She straightened, took off her rucksack, and began unloading it.

"Sod the inventory." Leo stilled her hand. "It can wait, can't it?" Gwen turned and looked up at him, a questioning smile on her face. Leo's dark eyes sparkled at her in the low light. His breath was still coming a bit harder than it ought, she considered.

"Yeah," she answered, smiling as she put her arms around him. "It can wait."

He kissed her, sliding his hands up her back under her shirt. "I love it when we blow stuff up."


End file.
